80 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Mechanical Expedients 
Interesting Reflections of An Expert Archer 
By Dr. Robert P. Elmer. 
A T the national tournament last August Dr. 
Case and Mr. Ovington placed on the 
ground between themselves and their tar¬ 
gets easily visible objects to be used as points 
of aim. In doing this they transgressed no writ¬ 
ten law of archery and so far as I know re¬ 
ceived no verbal censure from anybody. Never¬ 
theless Dr. Case saw fit to publish in Forest and 
Stream a short time later a thoughtful, scholarly 
article explaining at length the reasons for his 
act. Mr. Ovington followed suit in a later issue. 
The question at once suggests itself. Why did 
these gentlemen feel that a defense was called 
for? Was there some more or less definite un¬ 
written law, or perhaps sentiment, among arch¬ 
ers which made them feel a little uneasy until 
the question should be threshed out in print? Un¬ 
doubtedly there is such a feeling and it relates 
not only to points of aim but to anything that 
means a deviation from the simplicity of an¬ 
cient, elementary archery. Why this is so I will 
try to make obvious in this article. 
There is no use in doing things’ by halves so 
if we are going to improve one part of the game 
let us make our efforts general. Suppose that 
first we find our points of aim on the ground 
for 40, 50, 60 and possibly 80 yards and place on 
them white pieces of paper to sight at. Then 
logically we should fix a sight for the 100 yard 
distance. For nearly all archers this would be 
above the target so we must stick a tall fishing 
pole in the ground behind our target and sus¬ 
pend on it at the right height from the ground 
something for a point of aim. 
Having thus established perfect sights on the 
range let us apply ourselves, to the improvement 
of our weapons. 
In the first place the arrow must always slide 
past the same place on the bow but, as the left 
hand is liable to variations of position, we can 
here make a mechanical improvement. Instead of 
letting the arrow rest on the comparatively mov¬ 
able human skin we glue to the side of the bow 
a nice shoulder of wood and so eliminate this 
source of inaccurate shooting. 
Furthermore the nock end of the arrow must 
be in exactly the same place on the string at 
every shot so we fix that mechanically by wind¬ 
ing little lumps of thread about the bowstring 
above and below the nocking point. The arrow 
has then but one place where if can rest so an¬ 
other possible source of error is gone. 
In order to get the same trajectory the ar¬ 
row must be drawn back exactly the same length 
for each shot. No longer need we trust our 
carefully trained senses to secure this happy re¬ 
sult but we merely join the bow to the bow¬ 
string by a piece of stout thread 27 inches long 
and then pull the arrow back till it is mechanic¬ 
ally brought to a stop. Here is another thing 
made easy and accurate. 
How easy it is to substitute for three big 
fingers, made more clumsy by being covered with 
leather, a neat little mechanical cath and trig¬ 
ger. 1 once made one and it worked perfectly. 
It consisted of a T shaped piece of wood the 
crossbar of which was held in the hand. The 
other part was provided with a little hook which 
drew the string and was released by a trigger. 
It also had a spring to keep the arrow pressed 
against the bowstring. With this instrument the 
cast of my bow was increased and my shooting 
was very accurate. Here then is a fine mechan¬ 
ical substitute for the drawing fingers which does 
away with their blundering inaccuracy. 
In taking sight we look over the tip of the ar¬ 
row. However this is big and round so in our 
improvements we include a peep-sight screwed 
into the side of the bow. 
The greatest fault however with our present 
style of aiming is that we have no rear sight. 
We use our keen sense of vision on the forward 
end of the arrow while the proper position of 
the rear end is only approximated by blindly 
groping with the drawing hand for some reas¬ 
suring facial bone or collar button or what not. 
To correct this uncertainty is the easiest thing 
in the world. All one needs to do is to fasten 
on his bowstring another peep-sight, movable for 
different elevations, and then by looking through 
both sights he can aim as easily as a rifleman 
does. 
It is evident that the more tilt a bow, has, up 
to 45 degrees, the farther the arrow will go. 
Till now the archer has been obliged to depend 
upon his skill and judgment to find at the vari¬ 
ous distances his natural points of aim or to tell 
without them how much elevation he should take. 
Henceforward he need do nothing so elementary. 
A device by Mr. H. A. Austin, a consulting en¬ 
gineer who shot with the Wayne Archers last 
fall, does away with all uncertainty. The accom¬ 
panying pictures illustrate the method of its 
working. The principle is simply that of a plumb 
weight holding an indicator steadily over a 
Irum which revolves with the tilt of the bow. 
All these little inventions are perfectly prac¬ 
ticable and almost every archer could add some 
similar ideas of his own. 
If the sole object of archer} were accuracy of 
hitting as would be the case if the bow were still 
used in warfare, we should feel in duty bound 
(Concluded on page 101.) 
CH ICAGO. ILL 
LOCKPORT, N. Y, 
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